Quote

[T]he true natural sciences lock together in theory and evidence to form the ineradicable technical base of modern civilization. The pseudosciences satisfy personal psychological needs... but lack the ideas or the means to contribute to the technical base.

E. O. Wilson

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

E. O. Wilson
Age: 95
Born: 1929
Born: June 10
Autobiographer
Biologist
Ecologist
Entomologist
Ethologist
Evolutionary Biologist
Myrmecologist
Naturalist
Novelist
Science Writer
Birmingham
Alabama
E. O. Wilson
Edward Osborne
EO Wilson
E O Wilson
Edward Osborne Wilson
Wilson
Edward Wilson
Junior
Needs
Religion
Base
Natural
Psychological
Ineradicable
Means
Lack
Lock
True
Evidence
Sciences
Form
Civilization
Locks
Together
Theory
Satisfy
Ideas
Personal
Contribute
Mean
Modern
Technical

More quotes by E. O. Wilson

Image
The cost of scientific advance is the humbling recognition that reality was not constructed to be easily grasped by the human mind. This is the cardinal tenet of scientific understanding. Our species and its ways of thinking are a product of evolution, not the purpose of evolution.
E. O. Wilson
Image
We are not afraid of predators, we're transfixed by them, prone to weave stories and fables and chatter endlessly about them, because fascination creates preparedness, and preparedness, survival. In a deeply tribal way, we love our monsters.
E. O. Wilson
Image
The closer the genetic relationship of the family members, as for example father-to-son, as opposed to uncle-to-nephew, the higher the degree of cooperation.
E. O. Wilson
Image
No one knows the diversity in the world, not even to the nearest order of magnitude. ... We don't know for sure how many species there are, where they can be found or how fast they're disappearing. It's like having astronomy without knowing where the stars are.
E. O. Wilson
Image
We are drowning in information, while starving for wisdom. The world henceforth will be run by synthesizers, people able to put together the right information at the right time, think critically about it, and make important choices wisely.
E. O. Wilson
Image
Each of these [bacterial] species are masterpieces of evolution. Each has persisted for thousands to millions of years. Each is exquisitely adapted to the environment in which it lives, interlocked with other species to form ecosystems upon which our own lives depend in ways we have not begun even to imagine.
E. O. Wilson
Image
Each species is a masterpiece, a creation assembled with extreme care and genius.
E. O. Wilson
Image
The newborn infant is now seen to be wired with awesome precision... This marvelous robot will be launched into the world under the care of its parents... But to what extent does the wiring of the neurons, so undeniably encoded in the genes, preordain the directions that social development will follow?
E. O. Wilson
Image
You are capable of more than you know. Choose a goal that seems right for you and strive to be the best, however hard the path. Aim high. Behave honorably. Prepare to be alone at times, and to endure failure. Persist! The world needs all you can give.
E. O. Wilson
Image
In the end ... success or failure will come down to an ethical decision, one on which those now living will be judged for generations to come.
E. O. Wilson
Image
The two major challenges for the 21st century are to improve the economic situation of the majority and save as much of the planet as we can.
E. O. Wilson
Image
We exist in a bizarre combination of Stone Age emotions, medieval beliefs, and god-like technology.
E. O. Wilson
Image
But once the ants and termites jumped the high barrier that prevents the vast variety of evolving animal groups from becoming fully social, they dominated the world.
E. O. Wilson
Image
The historical circumstance of interest is that the tropical rain forests have persisted over broad parts of the continents since their origins as stronghold of the flowering plants 150 million years ago.
E. O. Wilson
Image
Human nature is deeper and broader than the artificial contrivance of any existing culture.
E. O. Wilson
Image
In the early stages of creation of both art and science, everything in the mind is a story.
E. O. Wilson
Image
[Bacteria are the] dark matter of the biological world [with 4 million mostly unknown species in a ton of soil].
E. O. Wilson
Image
Wonderful theory, wrong species.
E. O. Wilson
Image
Only in the last moment in history has the delusion arisen that people can flourish apart from the rest of the living world.
E. O. Wilson
Image
These slender little people (Homo Habilis), the size of modern 12 year olds, were devoid of fangs and claws and almost certainly slower on foot than the four legged animals around them. They could have succeeded in their new way of life only by relying on tools and sophisticated cooperative behavior
E. O. Wilson